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The Midnight Council
SOON after the nerve-shaken boys had left the gruesome Indian burial ground, Bright Star’s roving eye caught a pin-point of flame far down the shore. He quickly announced his discovery to Ben and Tom. At first they believed it to be a brilliant star, low on the horizon, but a longer look convinced them that it was a real, earthly light.
“Prob’ly the flame from a fire,” declared Tom.
“I only hope so,” Ben answered. “This night air is on the chilly side. It’ll feel good to toast our shins by a campfire for a few minutes.”
“No doubt someone from the village,” surmised Tom. “Let’s hurry on.”
“Ugh!” warned Bright Star sharply. “Go slow. Maybe enemy.”
“Good advice, Bright Star,” admitted the boy readily. “I keep forgetting I’m on this wild, western frontier.”
Accordingly, they stole stealthily down the sandy path toward the mysterious light. They all kept their eyes fixed on the blaze, which burned steadily and grew larger as they advanced.
“That’s the flame from a campfire. I’m fairly certain now,” stated Ben presently; and the others nodded assent.
They paused for a moment and listened intently. Then they continued their advance. Soon they were near enough to know absolutely that it was the light from a campfire. It was obscured, at moments, by dark figures passing before it, and those figures must be men.
“We could make a detour around it,” proposed Ben, as they again made pause.
“Maybe enemy,” Bright Star warned anew.
“Friend or enemy,” whispered Tom determinedly, “I’m going to find out. My bump of curiosity is itching something fierce.”
So they set about stalking the campfire. The sand was so soft now that it gave back no sound at all, and there were bushes in plenty. Presently they were near enough to see that the campfire was large, surrounded by some eight or ten men.
“Injuns!” whispered Ben, as they lay flat in the sand and drew their bodies yet closer.
Lying there among the dark bushes, and with their eyes growing more accustomed to the fitful, flickering fire-light, they made out that the principal figure among the savages was a tall, rugged warrior, forbidding of visage and wild of hair; and with a soiled bandage on one shoulder.
“Prairie Wolf!” muttered Bright Star tensely.
“The Wolf!” echoed Ben and Tom, almost with one voice.
The sinister, young Sac chief sat where the full light of the fire fell upon his dark face, and in the luminous glow he looked very cruel and very powerful. Evidently the spear wound had been rather slight, and he would speedily recover from the experience.
The other Indians, grouped closely about, were apparently members of his band. The blazing fire threw out much heat, and the half-naked savages reclined near to it, enjoying the warmth. The boys surmised that they had arrived only a short time before, for there were evidences that the fire had been only recently built. The Prairie Wolf was talking to the group, and judging from the deference paid to him by the rest, it was plain to see that he was the leader of the pack.
The boys, now that they had recognized the Wolf, were extremely anxious to hear what he was saying, and they gradually crept even closer. They were soon within fifteen or twenty yards of the fire, lying among the screen of thick brushes. There they had fulsome reward for their skill and daring; for, from this point of vantage, they were able to hear quite clearly. They did not catch all the words, but they caught enough for Bright Star to make a connected story, as he translated the Indian jargon in the lowest of whispers to Ben and Tom.
The bulk of the talking was being done by the Prairie Wolf and a scrawny, thin-faced Indian, with a yellow kerchief tied around his head and a faded green blanket wrapped around his bony body.
Young Bright Star gave a perceptible start, when he caught sight of this skinny savage in the green blanket.
“Ne-a-pope!” he whispered agitatedly.
“Who?” queried Tom.
“Ne-a-pope!”
“Who’s he? Never heard of the old jigger.”
“Big Sac chief, second to Black Hawk.”
“Hm—! What’s he doing here?”
Bright Star put his finger to his lips; then listened with the utmost attention for a few moments.
“Ne-a-pope come from Canada,” he went on finally. “At Fort Malden, across river from Detroit, he make talk with British.”
“Don’t tell me the British aim to aid Black Hawk and his Sacs?” muttered Ben.
“Ne-a-pope say British help Black Hawk. Much gun, bullet, food, blanket come pretty soon. Come in big boats on big lake, by way Mil-wa-ke.”
“Hm—! Bill Brown was right. There’s big mischief afoot. Only he didn’t know the half of it.”
The Pottawattomee again put his finger to his lips, at the same time pointing violently toward the fire. A short, rotund Sac brave had arisen from the group about the fire and was advancing directly toward them! For a moment the hearts of the three watching boys fairly stopped beating, and they held their bodies so rigid and tense that they ached all over. Then they relaxed, all of a sudden, like punctured balloons, as the advancing brave bent low to pick up an armful of oak faggots, which he toted back to the lagging fire.
“Black Hawk also get red wampum and tobacco from many Indian nations,” continued Bright Star, after a period of further listening. “Ottoways, Chippeways, Foxes and Winnebagoes. All promise to take war-path at signal.”
The talk about the campfire then drifted to other subjects, and somewhat later faded out altogether. The weary savages lay down to sleep, in a circle about the fire, leaving one, lone Indian to keep watch.
Now the three lads in the thicket began their slow retreat. They were so careful about it, that it was all of a half-hour before they were far enough beyond the circle of the firelight to rise safely to their feet. But after that, they sped along the trail, which was plain before them; for the night clouds had now cleared away and a full moon and many big stars were shining.
About a mile from the fort, Tom and Ben took leave of Bright Star, who now took a side-path toward his own village. Before parting, the three made plans to meet again the next afternoon at the lodge of the young warrior’s father, the great chief, Shaubena. There they would talk over the fateful news that they had just heard, also any new developments that might meanwhile arise.
A half-hour later, Ben and Tom reached their lodging-place. It was now midnight and the two lads were very weary of body and dreadfully sleepy. They tumbled into bed without a moment’s delay and within five minutes were deep in slumber, dreaming mighty dreams, in which single-handed they were putting to rout the famed Black Hawk and his horde of painted braves.
When Tom finally awoke, it was nearly mid-morning. The bright sunlight was streaming in at the uncurtained windows. The boy quickly sprang out of bed, and began to hurry into his clothes. Brother Ben opened his eyes at the same time, and sat up, stretching and yawning.
“Get up, Ben,” said Tom energetically. “We’ve got to see Bill Brown and see him quick. That talk we overheard last evening at the campfire proves that Bill is dead right on this Black Hawk business.”
After eating breakfast, rather hurriedly, they went over to Bill Brown’s lodging shanty. Luckily, they found him in, and were speedily pouring out the exciting story of last night’s adventure. The tall frontiersman was at once alert. The news stirred him greatly. He rose nervously from his chair and began to pace back and forth across the bare, sliver-torn, pine floor.
“Ne-a-pope, you say!” he exclaimed. “Black Hawk’s second in command! An’ he’s been at a council with the pesky Britishers in Canada. Jumpin’ Jehosaphat! That is whoppin’, big news. Mebbe that fat-head of a Cap’n Van Alstyne ’ll pay some heed now.”
“You saw him yesterday?” asked Ben.
“Yep, an’ got roundly insulted fer my trouble.”
“Why, the stubborn old goat!” protested Tom, his face reddening with indignation.
“But I’ll fix him yet,” went on Bill, smashing his big, right fist into the palm of his other hand. “I’m a goin’ to take you boys over ther an’ let you give him yer story fust-hand. Mebbe, then, it’ll sink into that thick head o’ his’n, that the pot is really b’ilin’ amongst the Injuns.”
The trio soon was crossing the old log bridge across the Chicago River. As they came to the end of the structure, they chanced to encounter a trim, blue-coated officer, who was walking down from the fort.
“Ho there, Bill Brown!” the officer called back, as if in afterthought, when he had passed them with a cheery greeting.
“What’s up, Left’nant Clark?” replied the big scout, quickly turning about.
“I’d like a word with you, Bill. Here’s some tidings that may interest you.”
“Let’s have ’em; an’ make ’em good.”
“I’ll do that. Major Whistler is here.”
“Major William Whistler?” asked Brown, his eyes opening wide with surprise.
“Yes, he’s back here to take command of his old post, Fort Dearborn. Come in late last evening from Fort Niagara, with companies G and I of the 2nd United States Infantry.”
“To take command, you say,” repeated the veteran borderer, as if still unable to believe his ears. “Hm! that makes Van Alstyne second fiddle.”
“Are you sorry?” asked Clark, with a sardonic smile.
“Oh, I kin skeercely stand it,” grinned Bill. “I’m cut plumb to the heart.”
“I reckoned you would be,” guffawed the officer, as he resumed his walk across the bridge.
“Must be good news, Bill,” guessed Tom Gordon, when Brown had rejoined the boys. “You have a satisfied look on your face, like a tabby-cat that’s just swallowed a canary.”
“Thunderin’ good news, younkers!” exulted Bill. “Major William Whistler, a vet’ran border man, who understands the Injuns an’ ther ways, got here last night to take command o’ the fort.”
“No?” chorused the boys.
“Yep, come up the Great Lakes from Fort Niagara with a fresh batch o’ sojurs.”
“Does that mean that we won’t have to talk with old gas-bag Van Alstyne, after all?” put in Ben, with a sigh of relief.
“Yep, boys, it’s Major Whistler now; an’ praise be fer that.”
“You know him personally, Bill?” Tom asked.
“That I do. Did a lot o’ scoutin’ fer him, some five years ago, at the time o’ the Winnebago War, ’way up in the Wisconsin forests, when the great chief, Red Bird, hit the Tomahawk trail.”
Without further talk the trio now headed for the fort gate, determined to see the new commander, and to lay before him the startling story of the conspiracy that wily Black Hawk was forming against the pale-face usurpers.
They had not gone a dozen paces, however, when a jagged rock, nearly the size of a man’s fist, went hurtling past their heads and struck the log pickets with a thud.
Quick as a flash, Bill Brown bounded across the road, pistol in hand, toward a cluster of sheds and shanties, which seemed to be the direction from which the missile had been thrown. He was just in time to see a hulking, blue-coated figure dodge away among the maze of buildings, where he was lost from view.
“Looked a heap like that cowardly skunk, Fagan,” scowled Bill, as he came back to the angry boys, “but I warn’t sure ’nuff to risk a pot-shot at him. Well, if the ornery critter wants trouble, we ain’t the fellers to dodge it.”